


Comme des étoiles sur ma peau

by hollyesque



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Body-focused repetitive behavior (BFRB), Dermatillomania, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, John is a lil mean at first, Mary is Not Nice, Mental Health Issues, No baby, Not Season/Series 03 compliant either, Not Season/Series 04 Compliant, Pre-Slash, Sherlock Holmes Has Feelings, Skin Picking Disorder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-05
Updated: 2018-05-05
Packaged: 2019-05-02 08:58:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14541228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hollyesque/pseuds/hollyesque
Summary: He is so sorry that he carves it into his skin with his bare hands, writes it across his arms and legs and face and back in blood-red ink.





	Comme des étoiles sur ma peau

He picks his skin.

They solve crimes, John blogs about it, and he forgets his pants.

He picks his skin.

He wears long-sleeved shirts and never rolls up the sleeves and tries to cut his nails down as far as possible. It helps little.

He picks his skin.

He has good days and bad days.

On the good days, he parades about in a carefully-draped sheet and shows off his patches of non-inflamed skin like they’re trophies, praying John won’t think to ask about the giant clusters of tiny brown dots that mark where he’s failed before.

On the bad days, he picks his skin so raw that it _burns_ with indignation and he can’t lie down on his side without being in serious pain and he hates himself he hates himself he hates himself he hates himself _why_ is he like this why is he allergic to himself why does it _hurt_ so badly _why can’t I stop—_

He slathers the welts in bacitracin and canola oil and waits for the pain to dull and he won’t cry about this. He won’t cry about something he did to himself with no gun to his head.

 He picks his skin.

John doesn’t know, and probably never will. It’s not that he thinks John will react poorly if he finds out; it’s just that he’s supposed to be _better_ than this. He has intellect to rival the world’s greatest minds, logic rooted in every crevice of his profession, values his _rationality_ above quite literally all else, and yet his brain has decided that the best way to rid his skin of imperfections is to utterly destroy it. How perfectly asinine.

He picks his skin.

It’s bad when there are cases, and it’s bad when there are no cases.

He picks his skin.

He doesn’t like when people touch him because he automatically becomes a thousand times more aware of the patch of skin where he’s been touched, and there’s an infuriatingly good chance that that will be the patch he attacks once given the opportunity. It leaves a sensation of tightening, of barely-there tingling that sometimes evolves into a full-blown itch. Sometimes John darts him an inquisitive glance when he randomly scratches some part of his body through layers of clothing, but he never says anything. Because John Watson is a godsend.

He picks his skin.

When John cries, “But it’s the _solar system!”_ Sherlock desperately wants to reply with, _I know._ How could he not know the solar system, considering all the constellations he’s dug into his skin? How could he not know the solar system when every goddamn night he gives each star a brand new crescent moon?

Try as he might, poetic as he tries to be about it, the tiny rivulets of blood that well up and drip down his biceps will never look like shooting stars.

He picks his skin.

It’s defeat. Every single time, it’s defeat. Every single time, he thinks to himself: _don’t._ He thinks to himself, _I don’t have to._ He thinks to himself: _I won’t this time._ Every single time, he does.

He’s done his research, of course. He’s read all about OCD, about BFRBs, about acronym after acronym. He knows that any and every therapist he saw would diagnose him instantly with a clinical disorder, but he won’t do a damn thing about it because clinical disorders are for _idiots._

He should be able to banish this through willpower alone; for god’s sake he’s a _genius,_ and every time he proves himself incapable it falls like a blow to the sternum.

He picks his skin.

He loses himself in it sometimes, doesn’t realize it’s started until he realizes that he _hurts_ and then looks down to find his arm/shoulder/leg/chest/calf has been destroyed. He stops immediately, those times, pulling back his hand sharply and feeling his system flood with equal parts shock and alarm. How his body could take over for him like this, how it could act without his _permission_ —

He soothes the inflammation with whatever is at hand and tries to make it feel like an apology, but he never feels forgiven.

He picks his skin.

He’s only had one pick-free day that he can remember, and it was the day he met John Watson. There’s so much symbolism in that fact that it’s a little revolting, but it doesn’t make it any less true. John Watson took his mind off his skin completely for the first time in _years._

Even so, it’s bad when he has John. When he loses John, well. He doesn’t like to think about that.

 

The two years he spends away from John are the worst of his life, bar absolutely none. He picks when he’s stressed, he picks when he’s alone, he picks when he’s in bed, he picks while he’s waiting next to a sniper rifle for his target to come into view.

He picks, crouched low on the floor of an abandoned flat in godknowswhere, hunched over himself to minimize the length his blood flow has to travel because it’s so goddamn _freezing cold_ and whatever meat he had on his bones before this mess is long gone.

He picks until it looks like he’s been attacked by a wild animal, picks until he becomes accustomed to the burn, picks until it’s a marvel he hasn’t developed a staph infection, picks until there’s far too much blood _._

 

If he was skittish about displaying his skin before, Serbia makes him want to flay it all off and start fresh.

He’s physically incapable of picking during those weeks, chained as he is with arms extended firmly outwards, but he needn’t bother. His captors take up the task of destroying his skin with _relish._

He doesn’t need the look on Mycroft’s face to tell him he’s ruined. He was a mess before, but now he’s _ruined._ Latticework of whip marks aside, it’s the cigarette burns that make him nearly want to laugh out loud for irony. As if he needed a new set of moons; as if it’s not just one more solar system in this clusterfuck of a galaxy he’s made of himself.

In truth, he’d barely even noticed when those were inflicted. The sensation that his skin was aflame was by that point one with which he was intimately familiar. It was just a perfect testament to how much of a mess he was even before he crossed the Serbian border; he can tell which scars are the cigarette burns only because he distinctly remembers which patches of skin melted off him. Otherwise, there’d be no way of determining his own self-destruction from that inflicted upon him.

He wants to snarl at Mycroft when his brother hands him over to a doctor. Wants to bare his teeth and hiss, _What does it matter?!_ John was never attracted to him before, being eternally and determinedly Not Gay, but now he looks like something a Hollywood horror film artist would cook up, so grotesque it’s laughable. No amount of stitches is ever going to fix that.

He has a blazing episode while he’s sitting alone in his room, waiting for the doctor to prepare his useless tools. When the unfamiliar man sees the patch of newly-inflamed skin, he frowns and asks if it’s an allergic reaction. Sherlock tells him yes, but Mycroft’s eyes remain on his shoulder long after the skin has been bandaged.

He’s set loose covered in more bandages than a decoration mummy, given a shave and a haircut ( _two bits)_ and a new coat. Mycroft tells him that John has dinner reservations at a poncy restaurant, then flicks his gaze to Sherlock’s shoulder and opens his mouth again.

Sherlock is out the door before he can draw breath.

 

John is not pleased to see him.

 

He returns to Baker Street bleeding anew, certain that he’s popped at least a third of his stitches. He doesn’t lift a finger, though, to try to stop the bleeding or call anyone who can repair the stitches. Instead, he sits on the closed lid of his toilet, bleeds, and picks until nearly every piece of him is a matching shade of red.

 

Days pass. They turn into weeks.

He picks his skin.

John tells him to _fuck off._

He picks his skin.

He takes Molly on a case, but he keeps getting weird looks from everyone and he thinks maybe it’s because he keeps calling her “John”.

He picks his skin.

Someone puts John in a bonfire.

He races into the flames because honestly, what difference could it _possibly_ make if he gets burned? He’s already so intimately familiar with the feeling—already been sliced into bite-sized pieces and marinated in his own blood and charred until he was shriveled and blackened—

He rips himself to shreds that night, head reeling with the thought that he might have been too slow, might have been too _stupid,_ might have let John burn—

But then John comes back. He comes back and he’s still angry but it’s okay because he’s _there._

Sherlock stops the bomb just in time and rips forgiveness out of John with pliers.

He picks his skin.

He plans John’s wedding to a liar. He makes Sydney Opera House serviettes and picks until there’s blood.

He takes John out for a stag do and John touches his knee and says “I don’t mind” and Sherlock wants nothing more than to—

The day of the wedding, the dress shirt chafes against the inflamed, aching skin underneath. Getting ready had taken an extra half hour that day because he caught sight of his reflection before he could get his shirt on. Janine makes a joke about sex and Sherlock solves a potential murder and Mary is pregnant and it _burns._

He leaves early.

When he’s home and the tails and vest and boutonniere and starched white shirt are all puddled in a heap on the ground, he sits on the floor of his bathroom and tries his best to turn himself inside out.

He picks so hard it makes him gasp, picks so hard it surely must reverberate through the flat, surely must echo off every silent, empty corner.

He gets no sleep that night, incapable of laying down on a single inch of his body. He sits on the edge of his bed and smokes himself half to death in the dim light from the hallway, tapping out his cigarettes on the ashtray he stole from Buckingham Palace.

 

He has another pick free day a few months later, but he’s unconscious for it.

When he wakes, morphine lies heavy on his skull and oh, Mary really did that.

He escapes from the hospital with a morphine drip and an immensely optimistic estimate of how long he can last like this.

He sits in Leinster Gardens, hidden from John in the shadows, and picks his skin.

John finds out everything, and then he leaves.

He picks his skin.

John comes back to Baker St. to help Sherlock recover. Long-sleeved shirts are torture and Sherlock knows because he’s _done that_ , so t-shirts are the name of the game from here on out. Even that’s painful, and worse, it means his arms are constantly exposed to the air and light and John’s prying eyes. He tells himself he cannot pick his skin.

He picks his skin.

John treats the bullet wound with a deeply furrowed brow, brews a lot of enamel-meltingly strong tea, and Sherlock doesn’t dare say a word.

 

Weeks pass. They turn into months.

He picks his skin.

The due date comes. The due date goes.

He picks his skin.

When John finally straightens his spine and rolls his shoulders back and marches out the door to “go get my things from the flat,” Mary is gone.

Been gone for a while by the look of it, or at least that’s what John says when he returns home with a severe frown and a clenched fist. Sherlock calls Mycroft and does not beg him to find her, does not beg for John’s sake, for the baby.

Mycroft’s voice on the other end, tinny and static but still infuriatingly condescending: “What baby?”

Silence yawns over the connection as Sherlock’s head snaps up to lock eyes with John, who understands immediately. Understands that Sherlock made a grave miscalculation and that Mary was only too happy to play along, understands that the woman who ran from that flat took nothing with her but the reality as the figment crumbled to dust. Understands that Sherlock is sorry. He is so sorry.

He is so sorry that he carves it into his skin with his bare hands, writes it across his arms and legs and face and back in blood-red ink. He is so sorry.

 

He picks his skin.

John is now back to stay.

He picks his skin.

He doesn’t know how to _live_ around John anymore, doesn’t know how to talk to this newer, angrier version of him. He tiptoes through the flat, plays his violin only at reasonable hours, keeps no body parts in the fridge next to the broccoli. John stomps up and down the stairs, slams cabinets and doors, sighs a lot. Sherlock stares at John when he can’t see until a tiny bump on his arm makes the world fall away again.

He picks his skin.

He cannot do this in front of John. He _cannot do this in front of John._

He picks his skin.

There’s a spot just there just _there_ on his bicep that’s raised and bumpy and clogged ( _dead skin dirt grime oil)_ and he needs to get it but John is in the room and if John sees it he’ll think Sherlock is disgusting but he needs needs _needs—_

“Why do you do that?” John asks, voice curious and unsuspecting. Sherlock glances at him, then looks down to discover with dismay that his fingers have latched onto the bump and begun to dig. Heat rises to his cheeks, caught and ashamed.

He snatches his hand back as though burned. Then he panics, just a little, just for a second, and tries to play dumb.

“Do what?” His voice curves up far too high at the end; the innocence is fake, cheap, plastic. Stupid. _Stupid._

Undeterred, John points to the spot where Sherlock’s traitorous fingers were just digging. “You pick your arms,” he says simply, “You did before too, long as I can remember. Do you know you do it?”

Sherlock tries very hard not to look like the bottom has just dropped out of his world. John not only knows, but has the _entire bloody time._ And Sherlock thought he was being so discreet.

He’s absolutely panicking now, and he scrambles for something clever to say to diffuse the tension ( _is there tension? It feels like there’s tension_ ). What comes out is:

“Um.”

He clears his throat and tries again.

“Yes,” he says cautiously, “I know I do it.”

“D’you know why?” John presses, marking his spot in his book and putting it to the side. Oh, no, this is going to be an actual conversation.

“Um,” Sherlock begins again, and nearly kicks himself. “Most likely some form of behavioral disorder…” he offers, “Um. Impulse control. Things like that.”

John’s lip quirks into a soft smile. “Impulse control?” he asks, but his tone is playful, “You? Who’d’ve guessed?”

He’d been waiting for John to make it into a Very Big Deal, to march him off to the nearest therapist, but that doesn’t seem to be happening. John just made a _joke._ Sherlock feels a little faint.

“It upsets you,” John murmurs, eyes very blue in the firelight, “Why does it upset you?”

At that, quite unexpectedly, Sherlock explodes.

“ _Of course it upsets me!_ ” he shouts, “It’s _disgusting!_ It’s weird! Unnatural! _Freakish!_ ”

“Sherlock,” John breathes, shocked, but Sherlock isn’t done.

“It’s just another way to prove Donovan and Anderson and the rest of them right, as if the rest wasn’t enough already,” he rants, words tumbling forth much faster than he can think them, “It’s something _unbalanced_ people do, have a _disorder,_ the mind eating the body alive, it makes no sense! My mind shouldn’t _do_ that! Idiots, ordinary people can have disorders but not me, I,” there’s a very dangerous hitch to his breath, “I, I should be able to—”

“Sherlock,” John says again, more firmly now, and for the life of him Sherlock can’t fathom how John got from his chair to standing right in front of him. Even worse, he’s gripping Sherlock’s hands and there’s a good chance that Sherlock was just tugging very hard on his hair.

Sherlock chokes on the rest of his diatribe, the scent of John’s aftershave shutting down all his brain’s higher functions. He breathes, feels the calloused, warm skin of John’s hands against his own, and feels an ominous trembling begin in the pit of his belly.

“If I was the one who did this,” John is saying when he comes back online, “and anyone said a fraction of what you just said to me, what would you do?”

“I’m not—” Sherlock starts.

“Me, I know,” John cuts him off, “and thank god for that because it turns out I’ve been a pretty shit friend, letting my best mate suffer for this long.”

“I’m not—” Sherlock tries to protest again, but again John cuts him off.

“Yes you are,” John says, smiling gently. “You are, and you have been for a while.”

He opens his mouth to protest a third time ( _a charm)_ but the words don’t come. He stares at John with his mouth far too open for far too long, and then:

By god, but he _is._

It crashes over him with tidal force, leaves him breathless and shaky. John’s face has developed a small wrinkle of concern and that’s probably because Sherlock hasn’t inhaled in a while but when he _does_ inhale it’s shaky and wet and he discovers that he’s alarmingly close to tears.

John must see it, because he says, “God,” and pulls Sherlock down into a tight hug. Right about then is when the dam breaks, and he’s making horrible noises into the curve of John’s neck and John is carding a hand through his hair and saying “Shhh, it’s okay, I’m here, I’m sorry,” over and over and it isn’t just about the picking anymore.

 

He realizes, much later, that it was never just about the picking. Not entirely, not really.

That comes after, though. It takes a week for John to tentatively suggest getting help. Another six before Sherlock will even consider it. The day after he decides to do it, Mycroft sends a car, and Sherlock gets in.

If he notices John’s smile when he comes back an hour and a half later, he doesn’t comment on it.

**Author's Note:**

> This one's been bugging me for a while. 
> 
> I wrote this because I personally suffer from Dermatillomania (actually went through a hear of CBT to combat it and am much better now) and I had to google "can't stop picking my skin" to find out it was a clinical disorder. This is one of the ways I'm trying to make it more visible, I suppose. And it's kind of nice to think that even the genius Sherlock Holmes could fall victim to such an "illogical" mental illness. 
> 
> The other way I try to make this disorder more visible is through my tumblr, http://disforderma.tumblr.com/. Warning: it's Really Fucking Pink. It mostly deals with recovery in general, but with special focus on Derma since that's what I've experienced personally. If any of the things in this fic sounded familiar to you, don't hesitate to message me. 
> 
> Title is from the song "Immensité" by Celine Dion, and translates to "like stars on my skin."


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